Sail Ho! | Page 3

I asked, as I saw him glance at my new cap, which I knew was beginning to be soaked by the rain.
"By that," he said, nodding at the embroidered flag and star upon the front. "We're going to be shipmates, then."
"I am glad," I said; but as I uttered the words it did not seem as if I were uttering the truth, for I felt anything but joyful, and my companion did not impress me favourably. For he looked sour, yellow, and discontented as we tramped over the wet stones along by towering warehouses, stacks of chests, and huge buttresses of barrels on one side, and with the great basins of water choked with shipping, all apparently in the most inextricable confusion, till we reached a great loftily masted ship and passed up the sloping gangway on to her deck.
Here every one was busy--officers, sailors, dockmen; hatches were off and bales of lading and stores were being lowered down, and we were just standing together looking out for some one to show us our quarters and to carry down our chests, when the warning shouts came from aloft, and we had so narrow an escape of being laid low.
CHAPTER TWO.
No one paid any more attention to us, and we still stood looking about, with my companion more helpless than myself, in spite of his having been to sea before, still wanting to get out of the rain and save my new clothes, I began to exert myself, with the result that at last I found a sailor who told me where I could find the steward.
That functionary was too busy, he said, but at the sight of a shilling he thought he could spare a minute, and at the end of five we two damp, miserable, low-spirited lads were seated on our sea-chests in a little dark cabin, after doubling up our mackintoshes to make dry cushions for the wet seats.
There was not much room, our chests doing a good deal towards filling up the narrow space, and hence our knees were pretty close together as we sat and tried to look at each other, not at all an easy job, for the round window was pretty close to the great stone wall of the basin, and a gangway ran across from the wharf up to the deck, shutting out the little light which would have come in if the way had been clear.
"Cheerful, ain't it?" said my companion.
"It's such a horrid day," I said.
"Beastly. It always is in London. Ain't you glad you're going to sea?"
"Not very," I said, after a pause. "It'll be better when it's fine."
"Will it?" said my companion, mockingly. "You'll see. I don't know how a chap can be such a jolly fool as to go to sea."
"Why, you went!" I said.
"Yes, I went," grumbled my companion; "but of course I didn't know."
"Did you go out in this ship?"
"Course I didn't, else I should have known where our bunks were. My last voyage was in the Hull."
"Oh!" I said, looking at him as one of great experience; "and did you go your other voyages in the Hull?"
"What other voyages?"
"That you went."
"Who said I went any other voyages? I don't brag. I only went that once, and it was enough for me. She's being new rigged--and time, too. That's why I'm to go out in this boat."
"Then you don't know the captain and officers?"
"I know you," he replied, with a grin.
There was a period of silence, which my companion utilised by biting the sides of his nails, till I said--
"Shall we have to do anything to-day?"
"I d'know. I shan't. Not likely. Don't think much of this ship."
"Don't you think it's a good one?" I ventured to ask, with the deference due to so much experience.
"No. See how that rotten old yard came down. She looks to me like a regular tub. Sort of old craft as would melt away like butter if she touched the sands. I say, how should you like to be shipwrecked?"
"Not at all. Were you ever wrecked?"
"Not yet. Dessay I shall be some day. I say, you're in for it. Sure to be pretty rough going down Channel. You'll have the mully-grubs pretty stiff."
"Oh! I don't know," I said quietly.
"Don't you? Then I do. Oh, Stooard! won't you be bad! Ever seen the sea?"
"Lots of times."
"But you've never been on it?"
"Oh yes, I have."
"And been sick?"
"I was once when we went across to Havre, but that's years ago, when my father had the Swallow."
"Had the what?"
"His first little yacht. The one he has now--the Swift--is four times as big."
"Oh, then you have been to sea?" said my companion, in a disappointed way.
"Dozens of times," I said; "and all about our coast--it's often rough enough there."
My companion stared hard at me. "What's your